


Candles for Coffee

by suchadearie



Series: Trading for Touch [3]
Category: Once Upon a Time (TV)
Genre: F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-11-12
Updated: 2013-11-12
Packaged: 2018-01-01 07:19:34
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,139
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1041971
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/suchadearie/pseuds/suchadearie
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>The third encounter of cursed!Gold and Lily French (alias Belle) in cursed Storybrooke in the Trading for Touch series.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Candles for Coffee

**Author's Note:**

  * For [RiskPig](https://archiveofourown.org/users/RiskPig/gifts).



Miss French lived a very secluded life. Not that Gold’s life involved that much of social contact either – more of the opposite, really – but for a girl of her age, well…even the nuns had more fun. He hardly ever met her out of her father’s flower shop. Not that there were many occasions to meet, but Gold found himself hoping for meeting her by chance when she didn’t come back to his shop for what seemed like forever. If he didn’t have his little keepsakes – a necklace, a barrette and a pocket square – it all might as well have been a dream.

He still had no idea what motivated her. And maybe he would have shrugged it off, credited some ominous lucky star, if it hadn’t been for her promise that he would understand. And he…well, he didn’t.

When Miner’s Day approached, he was still completely clueless, but when he discovered that Lily French was helping Mary Margaret Blanchard selling candles, he saw an opportunity to finally shed some light into the darkness – all he had to do was to buy some candles. And then somehow draw her secret out of her, extract it from her lips. He hoped that her secret was worth it to support those worthless nuns, peskiest of pesky tenants. Miss Blanchard would have skipped his shop, knowing that it was rather unlikely he’d do anything that helped the nuns, but he saw Miss French arguing with the teacher in front of his shop, and at last, Miss Blanchard gave in and trailed into his shop behind Miss French. He’d rather seen Miss French alone.

“Hi, Mr. Gold”, she said, smiling, and Miss Blanchard tried to smile, too, failing epically.

“Miss French.” He ignored the teacher and concentrated on her. “How can I help you today?”

“Actually we’re here to help you to do something charitable by buying candles from the nuns.” She smiled sweetly – and sickening – while Miss Blanchard stared to the ground as if she expected hell to break loose. She wasn’t so far off with that suspicion.

“Are you aware that I never would do anything to support those hideous creatures?” He gave his voice just enough of an edge to scare Miss Blanchard into stupor. And he increased the effect his voice had by staring at the mousy woman as if he contemplated to murder her.

“The nuns? Oh right…” Miss French cocked her head as if she remembered something. “Hey, Mary Margaret, why don’t you go ahead? I have an emergency plan for this.”

Miss Blanchard looked as if she was about to pass out in panic, and he almost pitied her, but every notion of pity vanished when she tugged at Miss French’s sleeve and whispered loud enough for him to hear “I won’t leave you with him.” As if he was some kind of monster. He knew that his wealth came at a price – it made him the loneliest man in town – but seeing proof of that made him clench his teeth in silent rage nonetheless.

“Yes, Miss Blanchard, please stay. I haven’t had breakfast yet”, he snapped, and the teacher paled. Miss French, however, creased her forehead and chided him with a look that made him almost want to apologize. He suppressed the urge to do so and instead snapped at her, too. “It applies to you, too, Miss French. I won’t buy those candles, not even from you.” He deliberately chose to ignore his resolve from only a few minutes ago to buy the candles just to get to the heart of her secret.

Miss Blanchard tried to pull her companion out of the shop, but Miss French was apparently less afraid of him than he wished her to be. Decidedly less than the rest of town, it seemed.

“Mr. Gold, that is ridiculous. Have you already forgotten that manners are important when it comes to customers?”

“No, I remember that quite clearly. I think, however, that in this case, I’m the customer and you are the one trying to sell something.”

“Lily”, Miss Blanchard whispered, quite urgently now, and Gold sent her one of his best snarling smiles. Miss French ignored her.

“Well, then I’m sorry, Mr. Gold. I thought that maybe, if you bought some candles and came to the Miner’s Day Fair, I could treat you to a coffee or something, but since you hate this cause so much, I guess I’ll be drinking my coffee alone.” She turned to leave, ignoring the gaping Miss Blanchard and him, no less gaping than the teacher.

“Wait.” She was already half out the door when he managed to speak again, and there was a smug smile lingering on her lips. “I’ll take five”, he muttered, worrying that Miss Blanchard’s eyes might pop out of her skull any moment. Miss French came back, placing her basket with candles on the counter and smiling at him as if he was a pet…Maybe a dog that, for the first time, grasped the concept of going outside to relieve himself. It was humiliating, and for a moment, he resented her just as much as he resented himself for being weak. Now she only needed to say something like “That’s a good boy”, and he would set her on fire, probably along with all her candles. And Miss Blanchard, to get rid of any witnesses.

“Thank you. I’m really looking forward to having coffee with you.”

His anger slipped away, as if she had turned it into soap bubbles with the warm tone of her voice, and that hopeful gleaming in her eyes. She looked at him as if she really told the truth, as if she really was looking forward to drinking coffee with him.

“Hm, yes.” He handed her the money and took the candles from her, and he had no idea what to say. She left him, smiling that smile of hers, and looking for a brief moment back at him, over her shoulder, as if she regretted that she had to leave him already.

But she kept her promise, nearly lunging at him from behind her stall with candles when he strolled over the Fair, and grabbed his arm to pull him to a stall that sold coffee in paper cups. She even insisted on paying for his, although the hot liquid tasted like hogwash, not like coffee at all, and was certainly not worth the money she paid for it.

“So, how have you been?” she asked him, and Gold was stunned by that question, and even more by the genuine interest he saw in her eyes.

“Like always, I suppose.” His answer put out the light in her eyes, and somehow he was disappointed by that. But what should he have answered to satisfy her curiosity?

“So nothing extraordinary happened?”

“Not since the last time you visited my shop, dear.” It was a blatantly cocky remark, and he expected to get doused in hot hogwash-coffee, but she chuckled, throatily, sending a shiver down his spine, and gently nudged him with her elbow. As if they were friends. Then she sighed.

“That’s so sad. Nothing ever happens here.”

He wanted to disagree – after all, it didn’t happen on a daily basis that someone came into his shop and debauched him so thoroughly – but he wasn’t sure how she would take such a remark, so he just kept silent. They walked side by side, slowly, and he wished he could just guide her away from the fair, to a dark corner, his shop, or maybe even his home, and let her debauch him once more. But maybe she was already done with that. Maybe she found that he couldn’t provide her with what she wanted. Whatever it was she was looking for.

“Hm, I’m finished with my shift on the stall, so if you want, we could walk a little together?” Her accent and her breathy voice made the words nearly unintelligible, and he needed a moment to sort out what exactly she had said, but then he nodded.

“Of course, dear. Shall I walk you home?” The prospect of walking wasn’t the most enticing one, but the prospect of spending time with her made him forget the pain of the exercise.

“Well, I hoped I could walk you home”, she said, and he imagined to hear anticipation brimming in her voice.

“And then what? Walk home on your own, through the night?”

“I admit that my plan has certain flaws. Maybe you offer me a hot beverage to warm me up again before you drive me home?”

“You mean…” He was stunned by her cockiness, and speechless for a moment.

“Well, I bought you a coffee, so the least you could do is offer me something in return, don’t you think?”

“Miss French, I bought candles. I’d say we’re even.”

“And now I’m walking you home, so you’re in my debt again.”

“I’m not an invalid. I can walk home on my own just perfectly.”

They were walking away from the fair while arguing, and by the time he noticed that, they were already halfway by his home. He dug his heels into the ground and came to a halt, and Miss French took another three steps before she noticed and stopped, too.

“You tricked me”, he said, and she giggled. _Giggled_.  

“And it was disappointingly easy. Since we’re already almost there, how about that hot beverage now?”

“If you insist. But I keep my business away from home, so no trading there.”

She wriggled her eyebrows at that, and his stomach clenched into tight knots. “You mean we’ll be spending time together without doing business? I like that.”

“You do?” He started walking again, and she took his arm, as if she wanted to keep him at her side.

“Of course I do. It keeps you in my debt for walking you home.”

“Miss French, I’m not that old! I don’t need assistance to cross the streets.”

“Are you sure?” She tightened her grip around his arm, and it burned right through his coat and his blazer and his shirt into his skin.

“You’re impertinent.” He didn’t try to hide his annoyance, and she laughed, a trill like the chirping of a bird in spring.

“And that’s exactly what you like about me, Mr. Gold.”

“Who gave you that idea? That’s ridiculous.”

“Yeah, right.” She was silent for a while, as if lost in thoughts, and he wondered what it was that went through her mind. But before he gathered the courage to ask her, they reached his home, and for a split second, he wondered if she would really set foot into his pink house. If she really was that reckless. Or, more precisely, if he was that reckless to let her in. But the moment to refuse her went by in a heartbeat, without either of them taking the opportunity to back away from the implications tied to her entering his home. He led her into the open living area that was his kitchen, dining and living room combined, and she looked around with big eyes, as if she was silently comparing his home to her own.

“Another coffee? Or do you prefer tea?” he asked, and her eyes went back from the impeccable splendor of his home to him, under all that fancy, perfectly tailored clothing nothing more than a scared little man.

“Tea is fine. Where do you have your tea things?”

He indicated the cabinet, and she went fetching them cups and saucers without so much as asking. Oddly enough, she chose that battered little teacup for herself, the chipped one he still hadn’t thrown out, for whatever reason, and her fingertips trailed its broken edge almost like caressing it.

“Are you sure you want that old thing? It’s chipped”, he said, and for a moment she pressed the cup to her chest as if she was afraid he would snatch it out of her grip.

“It’s perfect”, she said, and he shrugged.

“It’s just a cup.”

She looked at him as if she had seen a ghost, and he was glad that his kettle whistled in that moment and relieved him from saying anything else. She was acting strange, and it made him uncomfortable. After he poured her a tea into that chipped cup, they sat on opposite sides of his table, silently watching each other, and the strange feeling of having misplaced something increased with every moment that he felt her blue eyes on him.

“Is everything alright?” he asked after a while, and she tilted her head and bit her lip, drawing his eyes to them and bringing back the memory how those lips had felt on his, how soft and gentle and warm.

“Do you think of me sometimes?” she asked, out of the blue, and startled him with the sudden sharpness of her gaze.

“It would be hard not to…I mean…” he trailed off. His suit was too tight all of a sudden, itching on his skin, and he felt as if she was stewing him with her look on him.

“It’s totally ok to think of the things we did, and enjoy the memory of it. What do you do when you think of me?”

He swallowed hard, taking a large gulp of tea and burning his throat in the process. Gold started to cough and gasp for air. “What?” he managed to choke out after a while, while she still watched him with her head tilted in curiosity, as if he was an oddity, a pitiable creature.

She narrowed her eyes to slits. “Well, it’s ok to search relieve and thinking of someone while doing so. I do that, too.”

She must have lost her mind. She couldn’t be possibly sitting there and allude to…what he thought she was alluding to. “I don’t understand”, he whispered, and she smiled. But it was a smile full of warmth, not one that held pity over his inability to grasp her meaning.

“Do you touch yourself while thinking of me?”

His cheeks burned at her question, and his throat was too tight to breathe properly. And she saw all that, so there was no use in denying the truth.

“Sometimes I do, yes.”

“Good. Show me.”

He stared at her, torn between the burning wish to throw her out of his house and never think of her again, and the itching need to do exactly as she said. His member had already decided to obey, growing heavy and hard, and he was grateful for the table sheltering him from her eyes, because his mind screamed at him to run as fast and far as his crippled feet carried him.

“What are you asking of me?” he asked, barely more than a whisper, and she leaned forward and took his hand, squeezing it gently.

“Don’t be afraid. Please, I’d like to see it.”

“Why?”

She licked her lips, and he saw her swallow hard. “Because I want to see the look on your face when you come with me in mind. I want to memorize it. And I want you to think of me. I want you hard and trembling and shivering with me in mind.” Her fingertips trailed again over the chip in her cup, and he almost felt her nail scratching down his spine.

“And if I don’t want to?”

She leaned back and sighed. “That’s ok, too, of course. I will just remember the first time, then.”

He was shaking on his seat, pitifully shuddering, and he felt dirty for the painfully hard erection tenting his trousers. He wanted to give her what she wanted, just as he had wanted her to take him the first time, and just as he had wanted to eat her out completely the second time. And the shame of knowing that he had done this before, with her in mind, pressing his face into his pocket square and inhaling her scent on it, the shame of knowing that _she_ knew, twisted his insides and only added to the lust searing through him. If she didn’t still hold his hand in hers, he would have suspected this to be a dream, just as all the other times he awoke at night, sweating, with a hard-on and the lingering image of her imprinted on his retinal, as if he would see her again when he closed his eyes, so close and still achingly far away, never close enough to touch. As if they were separated by more than just space, as if she was unreachable, hidden behind a foggy veil of time. But now she was here. And he wondered how sweet little Miss French managed to turn him into a complete wreck. How could her innocent outside hide this…siren? He was unable to resist her, to deny her anything, and this unsettled him almost more than the thought of masturbating in front of someone, of letting someone watch this moment so intimate and personal.

“Will you return the favor?” he asked, realizing that he had already made his decision.

“I thought no trading in your home?”

“This isn’t a trade.”

“Then, if you want me to, yes.” There was something close to clinical curiosity in her eyes when he nodded his agreement, and stood to move to the couch. He made no attempt at hiding how hard he was, how aching for release from her words alone, and he registered with a small surge of pleasure that she blushed. She wasn’t as hard-boiled as she wanted to make him believe.

He took a box with tissue paper with him, and gestured for her to follow him and sit on his leather armchair. He moved awkwardly, stiff, and only too aware of his burning skin, but he had made a decision, and he was going to go through with it. There was no point in changing his mind now.

“You’re odd, you know that, right?” he asked, after sinking down onto the couch, and starting to unbutton his waistcoat and taking off his tie. She smiled that ethereal smile again, and her eyes followed every movement of his hands. She was not unaffected by this situation, and he was glad for it, because it made it so much easier to give her what she wanted, knowing that it created a heat inside her similar to the burning in his own veins. When he shrugged off jacket and waistcoat and started to unbutton his shirt, revealing the undershirt underneath, she swallowed and crossed her legs at her knees.

“Getting hot already, dear?” he asked with a husky voice, and she drew in a sharp breath, biting her lips in her effort to hide their trembling. Seeing her like this added to the need curling in his belly, and he imagined her wetness to pool between her legs, to seep through her knickers, and he groaned when he undid his flies and freed his erection from his pants. He heard a sigh from her when he cupped his shaft with his fist, pumping up and down a few times before he dared to look at her again. Her face was flushed, and she looked at him with a mixture of breathless fascination and hunger, a look so beautiful that it almost finished him then and there.

“How do you think of me when you do this?” she asked, hoarsely, and he groaned again, stroking his thumb over the tip of his cock, spreading the tiny drop of his seed that already seeped from it.

“I remember your lips, and how your mouth felt on me, so hot and wet…” He had to pump harder with the memory flooding his mind, and he heard a tiny moan from her. But his head fell back, and he closed his eyes and shut the actual Lily French out, concentrated on the image of her in his mind. “I remember your sweet little noises when I was kissing and licking you, and how you twitched and trembled when you came. I remember your taste, and how you felt around my cock, so tight and hot and wet…” His grip around the base of his cock tightened, and he stroked up and down fast, remembering the sounds of pleasure she had made when he had been inside her, remembering how she had made him _beg_. When he opened his eyes to look at her, he found her pressing her thighs together, rolling her hips and biting her lips, and it almost pushed him over the edge. She was breathing almost as hard as he was, and he longed to feel her touch, longed to feel her, not only an echo of an encounter that just as well might have been a dream. She somehow felt his gaze on her, and locked eyes with him.

“Please”, she rasped, “Come for me. I want you to come with my name on your lips.”

He thrust his head back, groaning, feeling his balls tighten with the oncoming climax, feeling heat trickle all over him, from head to toe, and he came, forgetting about the tissues and spurting his seed all over his hand and his chest, rasping out her name. Somehow her name tainted his bliss, cooled him off much too fast, and he felt soiled and dirty when he opened his eyes again to meet her gaze. She looked sad, as if she, too, felt the wrongness of it all.

“Not what you expected, dearie?” he asked, and she flinched, looking as if she was about to cry. _Fuck_. He wanted to tuck himself away as fast as humanly possible when she rose from the armchair and came over to his side, but she stilled his hands by grasping them while she went down to her knees in front of him, and it hurt him almost physically that she didn’t care for his seed squelching between their hands. He didn’t want to soil her like that, didn’t want her to get tainted by his messiness.

“It was beautiful”, she whispered, and freed one of her hands to pull some tissues from the box at his side, starting to dab at the blotches of his seed on his undershirt. He wanted to push her away, wanted this moment to be over, to have never happened, to be a dream as everything else that involved her, but he was unable to lift his hands and act on it.

“Why are you doing this?” he asked, and she smiled, bending down to kiss his knuckles, lapping at the stickiness on his skin. He yanked his hand away, too ashamed to meet her eyes and the hurt in them. She rose, and slumped down onto the couch at his side.

“I’m sorry. I hoped… I don’t know. I really like you. I didn’t want to torture you.” She lifted her hand and gently cupped his cheek, making him look at her. “Thank you, Mr. Gold. For this moment.”

His own name sounded like the hinges of a rusty torture device from her lips, and he winced. Somehow, something had started to break, to slowly come undone, and everything felt wrong. It was only natural to sink into her arms and let her hold him for a while. It felt right to let her encompass him, and soothe him with gentle hands, puffing strands of his hair away from his face when she bent down to kiss him. Her kiss held no promise this time, no passion, no attempt at seduction. It was a simple contact from skin on skin, meant to console the emptiness he felt, meant to give him some warmth, and he relaxed against her lips and allowed himself to feel his need for this, his need to be soothed and held and comforted.

“If you’re willing to wait a few minutes, I’ll clean myself up and change, and then I drive you home…” He sat up a little straighter, but not so much that the distance between them grew too wide and he would lose the contact of her hand on his cheek.

“Ok”, she said, curling her fingers in his hair before she let go of him, and he rose to go to his bedroom and change out of his sticky clothes. He hurried, feeling a tight knot build inside him, a wretched feeling of foreboding, but it was still too late when he came back down the stairs. Lily French was gone, as if she had never been there. The only sign that she hadn’t been a dream was that chipped cup that still sat on his dining room table, with red stains from her lipstick, and half full with tea that was covered with a shimmering film of oily colors.             


End file.
